AE PRO 4.0 Addendum PDF
AE PRO 4.0 Addendum PDF
AE PRO 4.0 Addendum PDF
0 PRO Addendum 1
Zaxwerks Inc.
5724 Camellia Ave.
Temple City, CA 91780
(626) 309-9102 phone
(626) 309-9142 fax
http://www.zaxwerks.com
Sales: sales@zaxwerks.com
Tech Support: support@zaxwerks.com
This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used or copied
in accordance with the terms of such license. The information in this manual is furnished for informational use
only, is subject to change without notice, and does not represent product specifications or commitment on the
part of Zaxwerks. Zaxwerks assumes no responsibility or liability for any error or inaccuracies that may appear
in this document.
The Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator is a trademark of Zaxwerks Inc. After Effects, Illustrator and Photoshop are trade-
marks of Adobe Systems Inc. FreeHand is a trademark of Macromedia Inc. Apple and Macintosh are regis-
tered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are registered trademarks of
Microsoft, Inc. OpenGL is a trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc. All other product names or trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
3D Text Creation
Version 4.0 PRO contains a full-featured text editor. Each letter
can have its own font, size, kerning, tracking, baseline shift,
horizontal and vertical scale, color, bevel, position and depth.
Building editable text into the plug-in means that changes to the
spelling of a title, adding words or creating multiple versions can
be done without ever leaving After Effects.
Motion Blur
Version 4.0 PRO brings 3D motion blur to After Effects. Anything
that can be created or imported into the Invigorator PRO can be
motion blurred. This includes models made in other programs
such as Maya, 3D Studio and LightWave.
Render Farming
Version 4.0 PRO supports render farming using the standard After
Effects render engine. This gives you unlimited rendering power
without having to buy additional licenses.
Highlight Mapping
Highlight (or Specular) mapping is a professional level feature
that brings enhanced photo-realism to the final rendering. High-
light mapping shows surface texture in the glare and hot spots
that appear on objects.
Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum 7
Wireframe And Hidden Line Coloring
These new types of materials make objects look like they are
drawn by lines rather than solid 3D objects. The lines can be
single-colored or they can be affected by the lights and reflections
in the scene. You can even texture map them if you want multi-
colored lines. The Wireframe style shows all of the lines in an
object. The Hidden Line style only shows the lines that are facing
the viewer.
Cartoon Coloring
This new material type paints objects with a bold graphic look
similar to how cell animators paint their artwork.
Absolute Coloring
This new material type paints objects a single color that is
unaffected by light or shadow. It is very useful for creating 2D-
colored graphics out of 3D models. Also good for giving a
corporate client the company’s colors exactly per spec.
Matte Coloring
Matte Coloring makes a 3D object act like a mask. This is useful
for creating 3D transitions, and 3D traveling mattes.
Font Menu
The Invigorator can use almost any font that is installed and
recognized by your system. Both True Type and Type 1 Postscript
fonts can be used. To change the font, first select the characters
that you want to change, then select the new font from the font Move the Block Size Arrow to the edge of the
menu. Each character can use a different font. letters for the best fit.
After a new font is selected you can use the up and down arrow
keys on your keyboard to step through the font list. Each click
down will apply the next font down on the list to the selected
characters. This is an extremely useful feature! It means you
don’t have to know what a font looks like to use it. Just type the
text, and step through the font list until you find a typeface that
looks good to you.
Size
This sets the size of the text objects. It is best to make the text
large, like you would if you were setting type for large displays.
The default size is 72 points. 72 is the smallest we recommend
that you make the type. Sizes smaller than 72 can be used but the
models may require extra fussing to make them look right. Each Click the large arrow to the right of the Size field to select
letter can have a different size. from a list of popular presets.
Spacing
Letter Spacing is also known as Tracking. It is extra space that is
inserted between the letters. The letter spacing applied in the
The little up/down arrows next to the edit fields text window does not animate. If you want to animate letters
can help you fine tune the values. Each click getting closer together or spreading apart, use the Spread/Bunch
on one of these arrows will increase or de- slider in the Transition controls of the ProAnimator.
crease the value by one. If you hold the Shift
key down each click changes the value by a Kerning
larger amount. Kerning is letter spacing that is applied between individual
characters. Negative values move letters closer to each other.
Positive values move them away from each other.
Kerning and Leading can be done from the
keyboard. Click the cursor between two letters,
Width Scale
then hold down the Option (ALT) key and press The Width Scale enables you to make a character fatter or thinner
your keyboard’s left/right arrow keys to adjust without changing its height. The value is in percentage, so a scale
Kerning, and the Up/Down arrow keys to adjust of 100% keeps the character its original size. A scale of 50%
Leading. makes the letter half the width that it normally is, and 200%
makes it twice as wide.
12 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
Height Scale
The Height Scale enables you to make a character taller or
shorter without changing its width. The value is in percentage, so
a scale of 100% keeps the character its original height. A scale of
50% makes the letter half the height that it normally is, and 200%
makes it twice as tall.
Baseline Shift
This feature lets you raise a character above its baseline, or lower
it below its baseline. The value is in points so a shift of 10 will
raise the character above the baseline 10 points. A value of -10
will lower it below the baseline 10 points.
Justification
The Justification option works on a paragraph basis. The charac- The 102 has been baseline shifted.
ters in each line can be made to align with the left or right edges
of the text block, or each line can be horizontally centered within
the text block, or can be distributed so that the first and last
characters of each line will both align with the left and right
edges of the text block.
When you see this type of problem all you have to do is to set the
Edge Offset slider to a small positive value, such as +0.1. This
will cause the internal boolean engine to clean up the overlaps,
loops and missing parts of the vector paths. Sometimes a differ-
ent value will do the trick, such as -0.5, or -0.1. Depending on the
size of the font you will find a range of values that don’t appear to
have much affect on the font but may help clean up the problem
Poorly created fonts can cause this type of problem. of a poorly created font.
If the Edge Offset technique doesn’t fix the problem, try changing
the setting for Object Faceting.
If we open the Text Window and erase all the letters, when we
type in the new ones they will all be colored the same as the “C”
because the “C” was the first letter in the text block. Double click on a letter to open the Text window..,
When only some of the letters are selected at a time, the Invigo-
rator uses the first letter in the selection as the “Master” and all
the new text is made to match the master. So by selecting the
letters in three groups, it will keep all three of the Object Styles
used in this title. Here’s how to do it...
4- Select the letters, “oming Up”, which are the rest of the letters
on the top line.
5- Type “ppearing”, which are the rest of the letters in the word
“Appearing”.
TROUBLESHOOTING TIP!
If you make a selection then hit the delete or backspace
key before typing the new text, the attribute matching won’t
work as described in this section. All you have to do is to
make a selection and start typing.
7- Type “Tuesday...”
Do not drag the Block Size arrow. If you change the position of
the block size arrow, it will change where the text is inserted into
the scene. This may push the text off the screen.
8- Click OK. You will see the new title in the 3D window with the
same “look” as the old title.
When you use this feature a sphere is created at the center of the
scene.
For instance, planes and spheres are colored with only a single
Apply a Material to a Primitive by dragging a
swatch and dropping it onto the Primitive.
material. Cylinders are colored with three materials; one for each
end, and one for the curved surface. Cubes are colored with six
materials; one for each face.
A Set can contain any mix of objects, whether they are Primitives,
text objects or objects created from Illustrator files.
18 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
Making a Primitive Look Faceted
One of the cool things you can do to change the look of your
objects is to make them look faceted rather than smooth. For
instance, usually a sphere is smooth. By making a sphere faceted
it will look like it was carved with a knife.
To do this select the sphere and then press the Stats button on the
Object Tab. In the Object Stats window you will see a field called Click the Stats button. Enter a 5 in the Hard
Hard Shading Angle. Enter a small number such as 5 and hit the Shading Angle field.
Apply button. You should see the sphere become faceted. Click
the OK button to exit the Stats dialogue.
Now you can play with the Draft Faceting slider to add or remove
facets. Once you have it the way you like it, set the Best Faceting
slider to match the Preview slider so that the final rendering
looks the same as what you are seeing in preview window.
1- Open the project that you want to add the Zaxwerks Object to.
3- Select the file you want to import. Click the Import button.
The 3D objects will come into the scene in the exact same
position as they were when saved.
TIP: If maps are missing, the program will ask you to locate
them. That’s why it’s important to keep your maps in a
central folder, such as the “Zaxwerks Maps” folder, or a
central project folder, such as “Client Project Maps.”
When objects are imported they will all be selected. Leave them
selected. (If they have become unselected you will need to select
them before going to step 3.)
When objects are moving fast, motion blur is used to fill in the
gaps between successive frames in an animation. In After
Effects, 2D motion blur looks like the pixels have been smeared,
but 3D motion blur looks like eight in-between images. This isn’t
really a blur but it does a great job of smoothing out the motion
anyway. The Invigorator creates motion blur the same way as
After Effects.
2- From the Layer Map 1 popup menu, select the After Effects
Select the layer you want to use as the Layer Map.
layer you want to be the layer map.
4- Use the Layer Map as part of a Material and apply the Material
to an object. If you don’t know how to do these things see the
Animate the Layer Map Offset to make the map move. two sections called Layer Map Popups and Layer Map Selector
Popups in the regular manual. (pages 113 and 257)
24 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
NOTE 1:
The Offset parameter only moves the layer map horizontally.
NOTE 2:
The Offset parameter is a percentage of the map being used. A
value of 25 will offset the map 25% of its width, not 25 pixels.
Doing offsets by percentage enables you to change maps at any
time during the production process and not have to change the
animation values of the map Offset, even when the dimensions of
the maps change.
NOTE 3:
The Offset feature can only be done to Layer Maps 1 and 2. So if
you plan on using this feature be sure to leave these slots avail-
able. It’s perfectly fine to skip Layer Maps 1 and 2 and use other
Layer Maps for general purpose mapping. That way you always
have 1 and 2 available when you need them.
2- Move the After Effects time marker to the point in time where
you want the reflection map to highlight the letters. In the above
example this means move the time marker to the two second
mark.
3- Scrub the Offset parameter back and forth until you see the
NOTE: You must have Dynamic Previewing highlights of the map appear on your objects where you want
turned ON in the After Effects Preferences to them. Value scrubbing is done in After Effects by clicking down
see the highlights move as you scrub. on the numerical edit field, holding down the mouse button, and
then dragging the mouse left and right.
In a Highlight Map the dark pixels reduce the highlight and the
white pixels keep the highlight. The Highlight Brightness slider
sets the maximum brightness of the highlight, and the map only
reduces it. The map does not increase the brightness of the
highlight.
Typical Highlight Maps
3- Find the image you want to use as the Highlight Map and click
Open.
NOTE: Since Highlights are dependent on the angle that the light
is bouncing off of an object’s surface, you may have to move the
lights around to find the best effect.
By turning on the Use Comp Lights feature you can keyframe the
positions of After Effects lights, and make the highlights sweep
across your objects at just the right time.
Highlight maps only affect the highlights.
• Wear And Tear. Chips, dings, scratches, scuff marks and dents
do not show highlights. By putting these details into the highlight
map a surface will show wear and tear.
Version 4.0 PRO supports render farming using the standard After
Effects render engine. To use this feature refer to the instruc-
tions in your After Effects manual about installing and rendering
on remote computers. Then install the Zaxwerks folder on the
remote machines the same way you installed it on your main
machine. That is, copy the Zaxwerks folder from the CD into the
Plug-ins folder. The Zaxwerks folder contains the plug-in and all
of the factory preset support files.
Pictures and movies are the only source files you need to remem-
ber to copy to the farm computers. The data used to create the
models such as Illustrator files, fonts and imported 3D models is
carried inside of the project.
For the visual designer, Version 4.0 PRO has many new ways to
paint the final picture and broaden your options for being visually
creative. The new types of materials include the ability to draw
your objects out of lines or paint them like cartoons in addition to
the traditional photo-real rendering styles.
Line weights can be controlled to the tenth of a pixel and are fully Lines not affected by lights.
antialiased for professional results. You can even use the Mesh-
ing controls to create a grid of lines across your objects for a
really cool look.
3- Still in the Material Editor, click the radio button in front of the
word Wireframe.
The object will still look solid. It will not appear Wireframe until
you do a Best Quality rendering.
5- Hold down the Command (Control) key and click the Test
button.
This will do a Test rendering in Best quality while you are inside
the Set-Up window. You will now see the objects drawn in
Wireframe.
Notice that Wireframe shows you all of the object’s lines, even the
ones on the back side of the object. This can sometimes clutter
Wireframe lettering is often difficult to read.
up the image making the object confusing to look at. To simplify
the drawing, use the Hidden Line style of rendering.
Now you will see only the lines on the front side of the object.
The lines on the back are no longer there, so the drawing is easier
Changing the material to Hidden Line improves the legibility. to read.
34 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
Making The Lines Thicker Or Thinner
8- Find the Line Width slider and drag it to a value of 0.5. Click
OK. Then do another Test rendering.
See that the lines are half the width as they used to be. This is
how you make very delicate line work.
9- Reopen the Options window and set the Line Width value to
2.0. Click OK. Then do another Test rendering.
See that the lines are now very thick. When the lines get too
thick they will start to fill in the object and loose the “drawn”
quality.
By default you will see “between the lines” when you use Hidden
Line materials. In other words the space between the lines is not
filled-in so you will see the other layers behind the Invigorator’s
layer.
3- Click on the color box to open the color picker and change the
color to black. Then click OK to exit out of the color picker.
5- Do a Test rendering.
See how the object is now rendered as colored lines with black
This material creates red lines with a
black fill, in the Hidden Line style. between the lines.
3- Do a Test rendering.
See how the lines are no longer flat colored but have a very
interesting 3-D look to them?
1- In the Material Bin, drag the Punchy Gold swatch into the
editing area.
Drag Punchy Gold down to the Materials Editor.
2- Click on the Hidden Line radio button.
3- Click the Options window and turn on the Fill With Color
option, then make the fill color black. OK out of the Options
window.
4- Select the objects and drag the Hidden Line Gold material onto
the objects.
Line rendering with reflections turned on.
5- Do a Test rendering.
See how the lines have bright and dark streaks in them? Those
are the highlights. When you create an animation, those high-
lights will pass across the lines making them look really nice.
1- Select the objects and click the Stats button on the Object tab.
2- Turn ON the meshing option, then set Meshing for Best to 5 for
all three directions. OK out of the Stats window.
4- Do a Test rendering.
See that there is now a grid pattern of lines across the faces of all
the objects. However, since the lines of the faces are the same
color as the lines of the sides it is a bit hard to read. We can fix
that by giving the faces a different color.
When all wires are one color it can be difficult to read.
5- Make a red, hidden line Material and apply it only to the faces
of the objects. Do this the standard way, by clicking on the
Material Set-Up button, loading the red material into dock 2 and
then dragging the red swatch up to the color chip next to the
front face.
6- Do a Test rendering.
Now the grid lines across the faces are red and the bevels and
sides are blue. This makes it much easier to read the words. Making the front face wires a different color adds to the legibility.
This will do a Test rendering in Best quality while you are inside
the Set-Up window. You will now see the objects drawn with full
quality Cartoon Coloring. Notice how there is a dominant base
color, which is the medium blue you chose earlier, then there is a
light, highlight shade of blue and a darker shadow shade of blue.
This is the basic cartoon coloring look. It gives the final images a
very graphic punch. If you don’t want the extra highlight shade
just set the Highlight Brightness slider to 0.
2- Set the Depth for all objects to zero, (0). Set the Depth to 0 to get flat, 2D text in a 3D world.
Setting the depth to zero removes the sides and bevels from your
objects. This creates flat 2D cutouts that will look exactly the
same as After Effects text on a 3D layer.
2- Create a text object and type the word “Pop Art”. Use Arial
The Pop Art look with bevels. Bold Italic as the font. If you don’t have Arial, any San Serif font
will work. Click OK.
4- Apply the yellow to the faces of the letters and the orange to
the sides.
The Pop Art look without bevels. Examine what you’ve created. The bevels no longer look like
bevels. they make the letters get fatter and thinner in some
places but they loose some of their effect.
5- Set the bevel for all objects to Bevels> Basic, Flat Sides.
Now you have the traditional Pop Art 3D look. Orbit the camera
around the objects to get a feel for this very graphic look. Notice
that although there is no shading you really get a sense of the 3D
nature because of the perspective. Use a wide angle camera lens
Use a wide angle lens to push the perspective. to really push the perspective.
Now you have Pop Art text with a block background. By using
the Edge Scale and Depth sliders you can control the size of the
block background outline around the letters.
The Pop Art look with a parallel outline.
The next step is to create a stroke around the letters.
Going back to the Scene Preview you will see that you now have
a medium orange stroke around yellow letters with bright orange
sides. Again by adjusting the Edge Scale slider you can make this
stroke very thin or very thick.
Once you get your pop art look just right, save it as an Object
Style so you can use it again. The Pop Art look with a darker stroke.
11- Change the bevel to Bevels> Medium Front. Then adjust the
Edge Scale so you can easily see the bevel.
What you have now is a combination effect. The front and sides
are absolute colored, but the bevels are shaded with highlights
and shadows. This can be a very interesting alternative to the
standard Pop Art look.
For example: build the TV cabinet and screen then apply a Layer
Map of an AE movie to the screen and give it the absolute color
option. The TV cabinet will be shaded realistically by the lights in
the scene but the screen will render the movie at full brightness.
The “pre-lit”
texture map.
Making 3D Environments
The really cool moody lighting seen in video games isn’t done
with lights at all. Rather, it is painted into the texture maps used
on the walls, and then absolute color rendering is used to render
the scene.
3- Color the star gold. Then apply the Matte Color material only
to the back face of the star.
Apply the Matte Color material to the back face of the star. 4- Finally create an animation where the star flies to the center of
the screen, flips over and then flies straight at the camera.
48 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
When the star flips over it reveals the back side that has been
given the Matte Color material. This will create a “hole” in the 3D
animation which will reveal a background layer behind the layer
containing the Invigorator effect.
As the star flies toward the camera the hole gets bigger and
bigger revealing more and more of the background image. Once
the star has covered the camera the transition is complete.
For instance say you have some bars that you are using to cast
shadows onto other objects in the scene. You want the shadows
to be seen but you don’t want the bars to be seen. Unfortunately,
at one point in the animation, the camera moves and you end up
seeing the bars. Visible bars Place a Matte plane in
front of the bars.
Rather than moving the bars and goofing up the shadows, you can
simply create a plane using the Primitives feature, color the plane
with a Matte Color material, and then position the plane so it will
block the bars from view. When the movie is rendered the
shadows from the bars will be seen but the bars themselves have
been masked out. The final movie masks out the bars.
The way you do this is to build 3D objects that mimic the shapes
of the objects in the background footage then give those objects
the Shadow Catcher material.
The original image in need of titles.
For instance say you have a video of a package on a table, and
you want to animate a title that flies in and lands on the table
next to the package. As the title comes near the table, you want
the shadows to fall onto both the package and the table top.
The final shadow flows over the package making the two
elements look like they are part of the same scene.
The first placeholder object you put into position should match to
the largest rectangular object in the background. Position the
rectangle so it is close to matching the background image, then
adjust the camera angle and position until the placeholder object
registers with the rectangular object in the background.
This image is close but the perspective of the camera
Sometimes the largest rectangular object in the background needs to be changed so the edges will match better.
image isn’t going to catch shadows. This is fine. Create a place-
holder to use for the registration phase, then delete it once the
camera has been positioned.
Once the camera has been positioned and the lens set correctly,
all the other objects you add to the scene will fall perfectly into
place.
Another great new feature in Invigorator PRO 4.0 is the ability for
Invigorator objects to track, or mimic, what an AE 3D plane is
doing. On the surface this feature might not seem that significant,
however for the advanced After Effects user this feature opens
the doors to incredible new abilities.
Any 3D object that you can get into the Invigorator can track an
AE 3D plane. If you use the Primitives generator to create cubes,
spheres, or cylinders, they will perfectly track along with an AE
plane. You can also make regular Invigorator objects out of fonts
or Illustrator files, or you can import 3D models and track them
too. Tracking - Illustrator logos
When you look closely at it, the tracking is being done by Sets not
individual objects, and since a Set can have any number of
objects in it you can have more than one thing tracking the same
plane. This enables you to do things like set up an entire logo,
put the whole logo into a Set, and then track the Set to an AE
plane. This will make the whole logo move around as one big
group. Another use would be to put a sphere in Set 1, and the
words Universal Pictures in Set 2 and have the letters all orbit
around the sphere in the middle. Tracking - 3D text
Many many uses will come to mind once you get a handle on how
tracking works.
A sphere will be created and placed into Set 1 at the center of the
Change the default sphere to a plane.
world. Let’s change the sphere into a cube.
Leave the plane centered on the origin. 3- Click OK to close the Set-Up window.
56 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
4- In the Effect Controls Window, click the triangle in front of
“Sets”, then click the triangle in front of “Set 1”.
5- The first parameter under Set 1 is called “Set 1 Track 3D
Layer”. Click on the popup menu next to this parameter and
select the “Controller” layer. Tell Set 1 to track the Controller layer.
6- Also in the Effect Controls Window you will see the checkbox
called “Use Comp Camera”. Turn it ON.
This is also important. If you don’t do this, the objects won’t look
like they are tracking each other because each object is being
viewed from a different camera.
7- Turn on the 3D switch for the Controller solid.
Turn on the Use Comp Camera option.
At this point, if you look in the Comp window, the Invigorator
plane and the AE controller plane should be centered on each
other.
8- Select the Controller plane and use the tools to drag it around
in the Comp window. Rotate it. Move it. The two planes will be
locked together!
Notice that the Zaxwerks objects don’t update until you release
the mouse button. Once you’ve released the mouse sometimes
you have to click on the Effect Controls Window, or even flip the Turn on the 3D switch to make the Controller a 3D layer.
visibility switch OFF and back ON again to get the Comp window
to update. This can get annoying but it is a limitation of the
interaction between After Effects and plug-ins.
Change the Plane to a Cube. 10- Drag the Controller object to manipulate the cube.
By the way, we suggest that you do NOT use a Null as the Con-
troller. With a Null it is very easy to accidentally drag on a scale
handle which will also scale the Zaxwerks objects.
If you have After Effects 6.5 or higher you can use the
Guide Layer feature which will prevent the Controller object
from rendering in the final movie, but keep it visible when
setting keyframes in Draft mode.
Turn the Controller layer into a Guide Layer
(in AE 6.5) so it won’t render in the final movie.
Now when you play the animation, the Zaxwerks Cube will move
along with the Controller plane.
When you play the animation the cube still tracks the Controller
plane. The cube will track the controller plane no matter what
you do to it. You can apply animation assistants and expressions
The animation path of the controller becomes
to the Controller and the cube will track it nice as you please. the path of the tracking object,
4- If needed you can select all objects and use the Move To Center
command. Doing this step is only to insure that the objects will
rotate around a pivot that looks normal. You might want to play
the animation, to check how it looks with the new pieces, before
doing this step.
The origin will be the center of rotation. 5- Click OK to close the Set-Up window.
Play the animation to make sure that nothing got goofed up and
that the objects are rotating around the correct center point.
There are three places that the pivot point can be moved. By
putting the objects at the origin and resetting the three pivots,
everything will re-align and rotation will be predictable.
4A- If you are only trying to fix a single object, click the Reset
button, then click Move To Center again. This will fix the odd
rotation and you can skip to step 5.
4B- If you are trying to fix a logo made of several objects, or some
other multi-object group, you have to use the object manipulation
The Reset button The Move To Center button
tools in the Set-Up window to make the group of objects face
front.
Do this by switching between front and side views and using the
manipulation tools while in Object Mode. Rotate the group of
objects little by little until they are facing straight forward. Then
Object Mode The Manipulation tools
click the Move To Center button one last time.
Here is a list of tips and possible problems that you may run into
when tracking.
• Be sure that the transforms for the Controller layer are all Reset
to zeros when you begin to set up the tracking. If not then the
center of the Set won’t match the center of the Controller causing The Reset button The Move To Center button
the objects to rotate off center.
4- Keep the objects selected and assign them to the same Set.
The Zaxwerks Swatches folder is now the How Swatch Handling Now Works
central storehouse for all swatches.
Swatches are now stored in a central folder called Zaxwerks
Swatches. Inside the Zaxwerks Swatches folder are other
folders, one for each of the swatch types.
This central collection of swatches is used for every Invigorator
effect added to an After Effects project. Each time you open the
Set-Up window the swatches are read from the central library and
loaded into the bins. This keeps all projects up to date.
66 Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator for After Effects - 4.0 PRO Addendum
Every time you save or delete a swatch it affects this central
library of files. For instance, if you save a new Object Style it gets
added to the Object Styles folder. This makes that Object Style
available for every other Invigorator.
Each swatch is a single file, and those files are located in the
appropriate swatch folders. All you need to do to share a swatch
with a friend is to find the swatch, attach it to an email or copy it
to disk, and give the copy to your friend. If you have used maps
as part of the swatch, you will have to give those maps to your
friend too.
No worries, mate. Swatches that have been applied to objects Click the Palette or Material Set-Up
button to display the palette.
can always be regenerated. Just do the following...
3- Drag the swatches from the docks into the Materials Bin.
This will save the swatches to disk and they will hereafter appear
in the bin.
Like with Materials, Object Style swatches that have been applied
to objects can be regenerated, just do the following...
2- In the Object Style tab, find the Swatch popup menu and use
the Save Object Style command.
The Object Style used on that object will regenerate. The image
will be displayed at the bottom of the bin. This process will save
the swatch to disk and it will hereafter appear in the bin.